


Let's Ease Them In

by bonotje



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Coming Out, Established Relationship, Fluff, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-21
Updated: 2016-03-21
Packaged: 2018-05-28 03:50:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6314215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bonotje/pseuds/bonotje
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Way to not be obvious Dan,” Hannah says as they arrive backstage. “You guys have been keeping this under wraps for so long now, what’s with all the slip ups lately?”</p>
<p>“We’re easing them in,” Dan grins back. </p>
<p>(Or the fic where Dan and Phil slowly start letting the fans know the truth, by way of other people's vlogs)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let's Ease Them In

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Hey guys, this is my first fic for the phandom :D! Hopefully you enjoy it, have fun reading.
> 
> (So I totally forgot to mention my beta Morgannita, she not at all in this fandom, but I still want to thank her for looking over this fic :D!) 
> 
> Sidenote: This takes place in 2017. It's mentioned a few times during the fic but can easily be read over, so I thought I'd mention it here as well.

It starts simple. They’re at the airport waiting to board their flight to Florida for Playlist Live 2017. There are a bunch of other YouTubers waiting with them and a few of them are vlogging. It’s early though, Phil is still wearing his glasses and Dan is tired. Dan is tired and is resting his head on Phil’s shoulder and he just can’t be bothered to lift it and sit further away from his boyfriend just in case someone catches them in their vlog. He groans and buries his face further in the make shift pillow that is Phil’s shoulder. “How long till we can board?”

“About half an hour, then you can go back to sleep babe.”

Half an hour later they board their flight and sleeping is exactly what they both do. 

Sure enough the image of them in the boarding area is captured in multiple vlogs and from multiple angles and the fans go a bit crazy with that. There are still the naysayers suggesting that surely best friends do that as well. 

\---

The next time it happens it’s just slightly more obvious. They’re in the green room area backstage of Playlist and Phil is playing with Dan’s fingers. They’re not holding hands yet, but they might as well be. Green rooms are generally save zones, but vlogging does still happen there. People often ask beforehand though. So when Joey notices them in the background of his shot he asks if they want him to delete the first bit of his footage. They shrug and tell him to keep it in. He smiles, says “You know your fans are going to notice right?”

“Yeah, that’s okay. We’re kind of easing them in to the truth,” Phil explains. 

“That’s great, I’m happy for you guys. It certainly was a relieve to not have to hide my affection for Daniel anymore.”

\---

They’re still at Playlist and Louise is on her way to their room. Dan and Phil’s room as it has been known for ages, but this time they decide to forego the precautions of having there be two beds or two sides of the room. They don’t mention it, but there is only one bed and Phil’s laptop is laying on it on one side and on the other side is one of Dan’s discarded shirts. Fans have spotted these kind of things before, but that was poor hiding on their part, this time there was no hiding it. 

Still no mention is made of it, they leave the Sherlocking to the fans as they talk to Louise. They admire the view from their room, they’re higher up this year and can see even more of Disney in the distance. The three of them are on a panel together, which was the reason Louise showed up at their room in the first place. So they talk about that and Louise vlogs them on their way to the stage. If they’re standing closer than normal in the elevator down they don’t notice it (the fans sure do though). 

\---

Playlist is over and they’re back home trying to beat the jetlag that is haunting them. Vlogs from Playlist are still going up, since there are people that decided to edit and upload them back home instead of fighting with the poor hotel Wi-Fi. They’ve been spotted in a lot of them. They had still downplayed the PDA, so what the fans see can still be written off as very close friends. They know their fans though, they read more into everything. They had once managed to read tension into them not mentioning each other in their live shows. 

So they watch the vlogs from other people and have a good chuckle over the comments from the ‘phans’ in the comment sections of those videos. Opening Tumblr is a whole other kind of clusterfuck. The moments captured in vlogs have been giffed, slowed down, zoomed in on, you name it. They like some of the more innocent and funny fan art and leave the website again. 

\--- 

Louise comes over to film a collab with them a few weeks later. ‘heart eyes Howell’ and ‘love eyes Lester’ are out full blast, but that’s nothing new. The video doesn’t take them too long to film, so soon enough they’re just hanging out in the lounge. Dan has made his way from leaning into Phil’s side to resting his head in Phil’s lap. Phil is playing with the brown locks of the other boy when Louise gets out her vlogging camera.

"Can I vlog for a bit? I vlogged on my way over here, might as well tell them where I was headed." 

“Ugh but I just got comfortable Lou,” Dan groans. 

“Then stay there,” Phil suggest.

“We said we’d ease them in babe not shove it down their throat, this is not something we can really write of as just friends anymore.”

“Then just stay quiet and we’ll act like you’re not here, Louise can just only film my face. You fine with that?”

Louise shrugs, “Fans will want to know where he is though, since you’re always attached at the hip.”

“Oh we do stuff on our own!”

“Yeah but not on camera, sweetie. So where are you supposed to be on this fine day then?”

“In a meeting for a new documentary. I mean it’s true it just wasn’t today.”

And so Louise vlogs as if Dan was not in the room. It takes some willpower from Dan to not burst out laughing at some of the things Phil and Louise say, but they manage. 

The fans do wonder where Dan is, but seem to buy the excuse they feed them. Well, apart from the real detectives who notice the way Phil looks down at Dan when he tells the lie. 

\---

Soon enough it’s time for VidCon 2017. The airport goes pretty much the same as for Playlist, they get vlogged cozying up together. Though this time it’s Phil with his head resting on Dan’s shoulder a pained frown on his face as the beginnings of a migraine creep up. Dan pulls him closer, wraps his arms around his poorly boyfriend as Phil’s head makes his way from his shoulder to his chest. The people around them are considerate and don’t point their cameras their way after that, which they’re grateful for. 

Dan thanks whatever is up there for the fact that they’re in business class with seats that go all the way down into beds. So when they board the plane Phil is soon laid out on the makeshift bed wrapped up in a blanket. The divider between them is down but the ones on the outside are up, so they’re shielded from the people around them as Dan presses a soft kiss to Phil’s forehead. 

\---

Phil sleeps through most of the flight to LA and thankfully when they land the migraine is gone. They share a cab to the hotel with Louise and Darcy. Darcy quickly finds her way into Dan’s lap. Louise’s camera is quickly turned on, because the sight is too cute not to capture.

“Why is it always Dan that gets children to like them, am I that scary?”

“Is Phil scary honey?” Louise asks her daughter, Darcy just shrugs and presses her cheek into Dan’s chest. “Maybe it’s the black hair? Or maybe it’s just Dan’s cute round face, it belies his bitter personality,” she chuckles.

Dan just shrugs and buries his face in Darcy’s curls, much like Darcy did just a minute ago. Phil is staring at the scene with such love in his eyes he’s sure people back in London can see it. 

Louise turns off her camera before asking “Have you guys thought about it?”

“Thought about what,” Dan murmurs.

“Kids? You look so cute with Darcy like that, you two would make great parents.”

“Hmm, maybe. We’re still young though.”

“You’re almost as old as I was when I had Darcy Dan and Phil’s almost as old as me.”

“Who knows really, we’ll probably get a dog first though which means moving. And moving to a house together is probably the last step in this easing them in plan. We’re only on like step 4 now,” Phil answers. 

Louise just smiles at that, already seeing the two of them in their house filled with all of their nerdy things. A dog running around their feet and a toddler wobbling around behind them.

\---

Their conversation with Louise leaves them thinking. Sure they’ve thought and talked about their future together a lot, but it might just come to be real sooner than they had expected. They spent the elevator ride up to their room grinning at each other. When they reach their floor Dan grabs Phil’s hand and pulls him along to their room. They dump their luggage on the floor and Phil quickly pulls Dan close for a long kiss. 

“I want that you know. The house, the dog, the kid. I want that with you and not just in the far future. Soon,” he whispers into Dan’s mouth. 

“Me too,” Dan murmurs back. “And I don’t want to have to hide it, I don’t want to hide this anymore. The plan just might need to be accelerated a bit.”

“Mhm, but first let’s make use of this lovely king-size bed,” Phil smirks as he pulls his boyfriend to the bed. Clothes soon find their way to the floor, soft moans filter into the room, which soon turn into louder noises of pleasure. 

Moments later as they’re catching their breath they hear a knock. They both groan, wondering if they can just ignore it. The knocking returns though and Phil sighs, standing up and grabbing the two bathrobes provided for them. He wraps one around him and throws the other one to Dan who is still star-fished on the bed. He waits till Dan has wrapped the bathrobe around himself before opening the door where he is greeted by Cat’s smiling face. She quickly wraps her arms around him in a hug before noticing their attire. 

“Oops, bad timing?”

“The worst,” Dan groans from where he had fallen back onto the bed. 

“It’s okay. Five minutes earlier and we wouldn’t have opened that door no matter how many times you knocked though,” Phil smirks. 

“Urgh, I did not need to know that. I can come back later?”

“No it’s fine, it’s been too long. Just give us a second to get dressed and we’ll go grab some coffee and food,” Dan chimes in. 

\---

They’re in a small diner. Phil is enjoying his first stack of American pancakes, whilst Dan and Cat each munch on salads that are way too big.

Cat gets her camera out after they’ve finished their food. 

“Hey guys, guess who I’m joined with this afternoon? Okay I know you all guessed right, it’s Dan and Phil of course,” she grins at her camera before she turns the camera around. 

“We just ate way too much food,” Dan groans. 

“At least you had healthy stuff, my arteries have been turned into maple syrup,” Phil whined slumping down into Dan’s side clutching his stomach.

“I thought for sure you would have had enough pancakes while we were on tour last year, but no just couldn’t help yourself hey Philly.”

Phil just glared up at Dan from his slumped position. As Cat turned the camera back onto herself Dan quickly pressed a kiss to Phil’s hair. If a secret smile appeared on Cat’s face when she was talking to her camera it was surely just because she was happy to see her friends again, right?

\---

Dan once again messes up by mentioning Phil as if he is on that panel as well when he is on a random panel about vlogging without Phil. The fans go crazy as usual and Dan just grins, doesn’t try to talk his way out of it. People know by now he is Phil trash number 1 and can’t help mentioning him. He just goes on with his story, saying how he once had to lie on his back to film Phil from the right angle for one of his videos. He manages to keep back the comment about that not being an unfamiliar position for them to be in.

The panel ends and he and his fellow panelists make their way off stage. 

“Way to not be obvious Dan,” Hannah says as they arrive backstage. “You guys have been keeping this under wraps for so long now, what’s with all the slip ups lately?”

“We’re easing them in,” Dan grins back. 

“Really?! That’s fantastic. I was wondering how long you would be able to keep up with the act. I know I couldn’t have done that with Ingrid for what 8 years? Even though it ended up not working out for us.”

“It was different back then Han you know it. I guess we wanted to make sure it was something longterm. And 50.000 subscribers seemed like so many and when it kept growing it just became scarier and scarier. We’re ready now though, it’s time to settle down and not hide anymore. We just wanted to spare the fans a heart attack.”

“I get it. And I guess we kinda did that as well, we just didn’t wait so long.”

Dan spots Phil on the other side of the hall they’re in and Hannah follows his gaze. 

“Go on, go do whatever it is you nerds do.”

“No it’s okay, we were talking.”

“Oh come on Dan I know you want to. We were done talking anyway. Don’t take too small of steps on your way to the big reveal, it’s a lot more fun on the other side.”

\---

The first VidCon party is going on full blast around them, but they’re sitting in the corner together as usual. In this corner they’re secluded enough from all the cameras around them, a little save bubble they’ve come to appreciate over the years. A corner where they can hold hands, lean close together. They remember that picture from ages ago though, the one the fans zoomed into so far that they were nothing more than a blur but still obviously them. They’re trying to accelerate their god knowns how many step plan though. So when Dan asks Phil if he wants another drink Phil just nods and leans in to give him a peck on the lips. 

A few more drinks are consumed before they decide to ditch the party in favor of their hotel room. Hands tangled they make their way over to the elevator giggling. The party in their hotel room ends up being a lot more fun than the one downstairs. 

Sure enough their kiss had been captured on camera. Once again they were far away though and all the fans get is a blurry picture. It still causes enough of a stir, especially with all the other ‘slip ups’ that have happened over the last couple of months. 

\---

It’s the last night of VidCon 2017, or better said, the last party of VidCon, the convention itself had already ended. For once they find themselves not in their usual corner but on the dance floor. They’re surrounded by their friends and they’re high on the joyous feeling being surrounded by this group of people gives them. And well, a bit of alcohol might have been consumed as well. Vlog cameras are turned on and off around them and they can’t keep up anymore with who is or isn’t filming. They sneak off to just outside of the group once a slower song comes on and dance close together. 

“It was nice to not be so conscious of our actions this year,” Dan whispers into Phil’s ear. 

“I know. And soon we won’t have to be conscious about it at all anymore. Only a few more steps left babe.”

They sway together for a bit more, the song switches to a more upbeat song but they stay close not wanting to burst their little bubble yet. They hear their friends sing along loudly to the pop song that’s playing, aware that soon they will be pulled back into the group. Not yet though. Phil smiles at his boyfriend, plays with the hair in his neck and then decides to fuck it and leans in for a sweet kiss, not caring who sees them. 

It’s not in the vlogs of their friends, they do however show up in a vlog of a smaller YouTuber. It takes the fans a bit longer to find it, but eventually they do. It’s just in the corner of the screen, but it’s them. Them in a close embrace. Phil’s arms are slung over Dan’s shoulders, Dan’s arms around Phil’s waist. It’s not the kiss, the camera swiveling to the other side just before. It’s enough though, they’re coming up to the last step of their plan. It was the last step they left up to faith. The moment could not have been captured at all, the kiss could have been captured it was all just happenstance. 

\---

They arrive back home and while it still feels like home they both feel that it has become time to say goodbye to it. 

The next morning they start looking at places they’d want to settle down. They decide that they want to stay in London, just not as in the center as they are now. They want the garden, the siren-less streets, the park around the corner with a playground. They decide to look at places in Harrow, call a real estate agent and discuss their options. 

They have meetings the next few days, but the next week they’re making their way to the North-West borough. They visit multiple houses, but decide that they have to come back another day because these just weren’t what they were looking for. 

The next time they visit houses the real estate agent has taken into account the things they did and didn’t like of the other houses they saw and it shows. At the end of the day they have to decide between two houses. One has a bigger garden, but only 3 bedrooms. While the other has 5 bedrooms, the garden is a bit smaller and it’s slightly pricier. Whilst they have decided to stop the two bedroom front, they want an office to film their videos in. They wanted a room that could turn into a nursery and preferably a guestroom as well. While the house with the three bedrooms would work if they use the third room as a guestroom first, it leaves the problem of there not being a guestroom anymore once they give the room a different use. The second house has room for a guestroom and a nursery and even leaves them with an extra room. 

In the end they choose the second house, figuring more space inside tops the few extra square feet of garden. They get handed the keys a week later and they can start the little bit of renovation it needs. 

\---

Phil is doing his usual Sunday live show when someone notices the splash of paint on his neck. He curses himself inside. After doing such a thorough job of scrubbing the paint of his hands before the live show he forgot that?

He lies his ass of when he tells them it’s for a new video he had to do some crafts for. People immediately start to flood the chat with ‘don’t cry, craft’, they had never let that go. People wonder if they’re filming a new video for that channel seeing as after more than two years it’s almost at 1 million subscribers. He lets them believe what they want, thinking that the actual video that might explain it will be a lot better.

\---

The house is almost ready and they slowly start packing everything up that’s in their apartment. Which is why Phil interrupts Dan’s live show (how they’ve managed to keep these going they don’t know) to ask him where the tape is. 

“Uhm, isn’t it on the table in the lounge?”

“No, I’ve looked everywhere.”

“Okay, guys just a sec I need to help this klutz find the tape he had in his hands just a minute ago.”

The chat floods with people wanting to know what Phil needs tape for, other people who had just joined the live show wondering where the hell Dan is.

They find the tape underneath the couch 10 minutes later. The fans are going crazy in the chat, thinking up all sorts of scenarios, only a few of which are true in some form. 

“Hey guys, sorry that took so long. The roll of tape had rolled underneath the couch and we only thought to look there after turning the whole place upside down.”

‘Oh so that was all the noise we heard in the background ;).’ He sees some comments say. 

“Yes guys that really was all that happened, get your minds out of the gutter. What do we need tape for? Uh just packing up some boxes that need to be shipped off for a secret project, sorry guys my lips are sealed.”

He ends the live show at the normal time even though the viewers had spent ten minutes of it staring at an empty bedroom. He was tired though, they had spent the whole day packing up all the stuff they had managed to acquire over the last few years they had lived here. 

“A secret project huh.”

“Well technically it’s true, this house is the biggest secret project of all.”

“True.”

“So are you done packing for the day?” 

“Not really, but I’m too tired to keep going. There’s things I’d rather be doing anyway.”

“Really, what kind of things,” Dan smirks. 

“Oh how I wish I’d have enough energy left for that, but really all I really want right now is some Buffy and cuddles.”

“You’re getting old babe.”

“Oh hush you little shit and come cuddle me.”

\---

It’s their last night in the apartment, it’s completely empty apart from a little bit of food, their toiletries and a two person air mattress spread out in the living room. 

“It feels so weird, this place has been our home since 2012. Five years is a long time. Sorry for making that first year so hard,” Dan said apologetically. 

“It is okay babe, we’ve both grown a lot since then. Besides the video we’re making tomorrow more than makes up for everything. We should go to sleep though, it’s late and tomorrow is a big day.” 

They lay down on the uncomfortable air mattress, wrap the blanket around them and with a soft kiss they go to sleep in their apartment for the last time. 

\---

They wake up early, excitement coursing through their veins. 

“Hey,” Dan smiles.

“Hey. Today’s the big day,” Phil says softly a smile growing bigger on his face. The smile becomes full sized when a pair of lips land on his.

“So should we start this ‘Day in the life video’ then?”

Phil reaches for his phone turning on the camera before greeting their viewers. Dan rests his head on his shoulder to just be in shot as well.

“Hey guys, welcome to this special edition of A Day in the Life of Dan and Phil! As you may have noticed we have a different background.”

“Well it’s not that much of a background anymore is it Phil?”

Phil pans the camera around the empty living room, familiar couch, bookcase and posters all gone now. 

“Have we been robbed?” Phil asks mock worried. “No, but today is a very special day as we are moving!”

“Yes! And we’ll be taking you along with us today as we wanted you guys to get a chance to say goodbye to this flat as well. There will be some other surprises along the way as well,” Dan grinned at the camera. 

They turned off the camera and quickly ate some crackers as breakfast seeing as there wasn’t anything else left and got dressed. In the time they had taken to get ready the air mattress had deflated. They quickly packed it up along with all the other bits and pieces they still had laying around. 

The next clip shows them closing their front door for the last time before they hand the keys their landlord. They’re quiet for a while as they stare at the building in front of them before Phil speaks up. “Come on Dan we’ve got places to be!”

The scene switches to them in the back of a cab. “So guys I promise we will show you the house soon, but we have a stop to make along the way. We’ll be there soon.”

Another jump cut and the viewers are met with a chorus of high barks as they make their way into the dog kennel. A litter of Shiba Inu puppies is soon crawling around their feet. They’re looking for the one with a green collar around its neck though, as that is the one they’ll be taking home with them. They had picked out their puppy a few days ago. 

Phil finds him first, reaching down to scratch his head. “Hey Mallow, you ready to go home?”

Dan reaches for the leash they had bought earlier and hooks it onto the green collar. The puppy happily follows them as Dan squeaks a tiny ball. 

“That’s right people we did it, we got a dog. His name is Mallow, because look at him doesn’t he look just like a roasted marshmallow?”

They say goodbye to the breeder and make their way back to the cab, the cabbie had kindly agreed to wait and wasn’t bothered by them taking a puppy into the cab. 

The next scene shows Mallow running around in their new house. It’s decorated with both old and new stuff and just screams them. A brand new couch is placed opposite a nice fireplace with a flat screen TV hanging above it. Their old table and colorful chairs are still there and geeky memorabilia fill the room. They walk into the kitchen which is a bit bigger than the one they had in the flat, leaving room for a small kitchen table. Next they make their way upstairs, Mallow barking to be picked up because he couldn’t climb the stairs yet. They show off their office where they’ll now be filming both their personal channel videos and gaming videos. The room is basically made up of three sections, a Dan backdrop, a Phil backdrop and in the middle their gaming computer and consoles with a DanAndPhilGames backdrop. They show of the guestroom, but decide to not show the other two rooms because they’re basically just filled with random stuff right now. 

The scene switches for the last time, the video quality of the footage a bit higher because they’re using their DSLR camera. They’re sitting on their bed, a black, dark blue and light blue patterned duvet covering it. 

“Hey guys, so that was a quick tour of our new house. As you can see there’s only one main bedroom and I’m sorry but this video will probably be one of the only times you’ll see it. As you saw, the office now has three different backdrops, so that is where we’ll be filming our videos from now on,” Phil explains.

“Yes. We didn’t want to keep the whole fake rooms going and the office still captures both of our aesthetics,” Dan chuckles. 

“We know you guys probably have a lot of questions right now. But to be fair we haven’t really been subtle over the last couple of months. So to for once and for all answer some questions. Yes we are together. Yes we just bought both a house and a puppy together. We’re still living in London, just not in the center. And no we are not gonna quit YouTube as evidenced by the new office.”

They hear a whine coming from outside the door. Dan quickly stands up and picks Mallow up before sitting back down. 

“So I hope you enjoyed this special day in the life of Dan, Phil and Mallow. See you soon.” Dan ends the video with a salute to the camera, while Phil just grins extra big. 

Dan makes quick work of editing the video, while Phil makes a nice thumbnail that isn’t to revealing. 

That evening they explode the internet by uploading a video called ‘A Special Day in the Life of Dan and Phil’. They avoid the internet for a while, but soon enough the urge to check the reaction of people on Social Media gets the best of them and they spend the next hour liking gifsets and replying to tweets. 

The rush of adrenaline after uploading the video eventually subsides and together the crawl their way into their new bed in their new house. 

“Welcome home Bear.” 

“Welcome home Philly.”

**Author's Note:**

> Well that was my first fanfic dabble in the Phandom, I hope you enjoyed it :). Sorry if the ending seemed a bit similar to others, but there's only so many ways you can write them getting a house and a dog :P.


End file.
